The Mink Farm
This story begins on a late-spring evening at the Mink farm, about three miles north of our home, when I was only seven years old. The farm belonged to a man named Gene Mink, who rented it to my dad who pastured a small flock of sheep there. Dad would sometimes bring Mom, John Edward, Margaret, and me with him in our old Ford pick-up truck to help feed and check on the sheep at the end of the day.
Dad would herd the sheep from the pasture into a lot for the night, near the old deserted and dilapidated Mink family farmhouse. No one had lived in the farmhouse for many years, not since a murder had been committed there, according to John Edward. My older brother listened more attentively than I to the stories the grown-ups told and would then retell them to me. Years before, a teenage boy named Fred Mink (Gene Mink’s uncle) had been driven from the farm by his mean stepmother. Fred returned several years later as a grown-up and shot her as she was sitting in the kitchen. The bloodstains were still on the floor. John Edward and I didn’t have to look through the window to see the bloodstains; we just knew.
The rotting, unpainted house looked exactly the way a haunted house should. The windows were mostly covered with boards, and the kitchen door was padlocked. A board had fallen off the window closest to the door so that we could have peeked in, but John Edward and I had no desire to go closer to the house than where Dad had parked the truck. Weeds and brush had grown up across the front of the porch. I tried to imagine that the house wasn’t there, but I felt a chill from it.
John Edward and I helped Dad feed the ewes and make sure all their lambs were accounted for. Some dogs in the neighborhood were suspected of killing sheep, so although we hadn’t had any losses, we checked on the sheep every day. We couldn’t afford to lose any sheep; marketing them in the fall would be an important source of income.
The Ride Home
“John, are you ready to go?” my mom called. “Margaret is getting sleepy, and it’s going to be dark soon.” So, Dad ended his lingering over the sheep and whatever fussing he was doing with the water tank and the gates and called to John Edward and me, “OK, boys, jump in the back!”
Riding in the back of the old pick-up truck was the fun part of the trip to and from the Mink farm. We stood up in the bed and leaned against the rear of the cab, bracing to our sides so as not to fall out of the truck if Dad had to swerve suddenly. Mom held Margaret on her lap beside Dad inside the cab. Our truck had been blue once, and it featured a windshield hinged along the top that could be cranked open; the bottom swung out for better air circulation. But this night it had already begun to cool down, so Mom cranked the windshield closed.
The lane was a narrow strip of grass and dirt for almost a half-mile in an easterly direction from the Mink farm; then we turned to the right, heading south on a wider road that led toward the house where Uncle Loren and Aunt Mary lived. When we passed their house, we would be only a mile from our home. The total time returning home was less than ten minutes.
The air blew in our faces as we stood up at the front of the bed, leaning against the cab, with our heads above the cab facing forward. There was a series of up and down elevations of the lane, and the temperature change from warm on the high elevation “tops of the hills” to the seconds-later cooler air “down into the next dip” was exhilarating. While enjoying the temperature changes, we had to be alert for tree branches that drooped into our path from the trees and bushes that bordered the lane. If I closed my eyes to concentrate on the feel of the air rushing by, a low-hanging branch might whack me in the face, so I had to keep my eyes open. The ride was something no amusement park could copy.
This exciting part of the ride didn’t last very long. The main road leading south toward Uncle Loren and Aunt Mary’s was level and dusty. The dust boiled up behind us as we sped along the road, past the Austin place. But then the truck suddenly died and rolled to a stop.
The Truck Goes Silent
“Are we out of gas?” asked Mom. “No, it can’t be that; I just filled it this afternoon,” Dad answered, as he lifted the hood on the side of the engine compartment to examine its contents. “The magneto must have stopped working.” A magneto was a device that caused the spark plugs to fire; otherwise, the plugs couldn’t fire, and the engine wouldn’t run. “I can’t fix it now. We’ll have to walk to Lornie’s and have him take us home.” Dad always called his brother Loren by the name of Lornie, although his real name was Lawrence.
Our problem was not the distance to my Uncle’s house, but the sudden and complete darkness that had descended upon us in the last few minutes as we stood in the middle of the deserted road looking at the truck. The moon was in its dark phase; the night had become so dark that we really could not see our hands in front of us. The stars were out, but weren’t producing any useful “lighting the way” help. My dad instructed us to follow him because he could at least feel his way along the road. He kept up a steady, low conversation with Mom, who held John Edward’s and my hands, while Dad carried Margaret. We started feeling our way slowly down the road in total blackness.
My only contribution to the situation was to ask my brother if the ghost of old Mrs. Mink was likely to roam this far from the Mink house that she haunted. John Edward surmised that she probably would not because the haunting privileges along this stretch of road belonged to Mary Austin, who had been burned to death while cleaning a stove in the old Austin house we had just passed. Not very reassuring.
After a short time of walking quietly together in the dark, we sensed the beginning of a faint light! It was coming from behind us, in the northern sky. I immediately expressed something to the effect that sure enough the ghost of Mary Austin was no doubt carrying some fire with her. But Mom shushed me, and we turned to stare in wonder as the northern sky began to fill with light. Margaret had fallen asleep on Dad’s shoulder, but John Edward and I witnessed an array of great flickering yellowish-green, green, softly pulsating fingers of light that were shooting up into the northern sky. Their brightness increased until the road and the fencerows on each side, the ditch along the west side of the road, and even the trees out in the pasture east of us were illuminated! It was the grandest display of the northern lights I’ve ever seen or ever expect to see.
Light in the Northern Sky
Mom called them the Aurora Borealis, a phenomenon of nature caused by beams of electrons from the sun being spun somehow by the magnetic field at the North Pole into these spellbinding rays of light that flickered and moved as if they were alive. That made no sense to me, but Mom knew these kinds of things. I walked quietly beside Mom. Normally, my mode of walking would have been to run ahead kicking up dust, rolling down the bank into the ditch alongside the road pretending to be hurt, or throwing rocks. But I was content to just walk quietly and sense that this was a special moment. Even the normal sounds of the night were strangely silent as if all the night creatures were also in awe of the moment.
We soon saw the outline of Uncle Loren and Aunt Mary’s house. We walked up their lane and around their house until we could see an inviting light streaming from their kitchen window. When Uncle Loren came to the door in response to Dad’s knock, he had a fleeting look of surprise but quickly realized what had happened to us. “Nice evening to take everyone out for a walk,” he said. Dad didn’t answer, just motioned him to come out, as Margaret was asleep.
The Last Leg Home
Uncle Loren was surprised to see the northern lights flickering across the sky, but by then they were starting to diminish. His Plymouth was parked nearby under a row of mulberry trees between the house and the barn. Mom climbed into the back seat and took Margaret onto her lap. Dad sat in the front seat beside Uncle Loren, while John Edward and I sat in the back beside Mom. Uncle Loren turned his car into the lane as we began the last leg of our journey home, and that’s the last thing I remember.